Correction of clerical error in criminal sentencing: three-month versus three-year custodial sentence

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) 2nd Criminal Senate dismissed the defendant's appeal against a judgment of the Landgericht Erfurt from March 16, 2022, as unfounded, while simultaneously correcting an obvious clerical error in the sentencing section; consequently, the lower court's conviction stands, but the sentence imposed under Section II.8 of the judgment's reasoning was clarified to be a custodial sentence of three months instead of three years, with the defendant ordered to bear the costs of the appellate proceedings and the necessary expenses of the auxiliary victim. The dispute concerned a criminal conviction where the defendant challenged the trial court's decision, resulting in a rejection of the substantive appeal but a formal rectification of the penalty's duration due to a scrivener's error. The decisive legal basis involved the appellate power to reject unfounded revisions and the procedural mechanism for correcting evident clerical mistakes (*offensichtliches Schreibversehen*) in the judgment's operative part to ensure legal certainty and proportionality.